Watery Creature
Changing skin for clothes
and rending teeth for toothy smiles
a wedding soon ensues to treasure.
Skin secreted in hidden chest awhiles
where hearts beat much less
but whose pounding for fear of founding
leave detectable scents nonetheless
eventually find their winding way bestows
a replacing of haranguing clothes.
Children? Home? Husband? Culture?
All is shed for free watery pleasure…
--by Scott Michael Potter
About this poem
Mermaids are not nearly as docile in most cultures as they are portrayed most often today: singing lovely songs, which is the job of Sirens, and brushing their long hair, more likely Rapunzel; and instead, in rare cases they came to shore out of a longing for a normal life, wed a suitable adoring male and had a child as a loving wife, only to then disappear abruptly when the call of the sea, their original home, was too great; and in most cultures, they simply ate sailors ravenously after they fell overboard in choppy seas, or devoured young children who frolicking onshore foolishly got too close to the dangerous water despite parental warnings. The enstorying below entails the more peaceful variety, but does not complete it, for that is the job of another poem, poet, or reader to accomplish, that of the child leaving home to transform into a Mer-being once puberty strikes, thereby abandoning the distraught husband and father. more »
Written on February 18, 2022
Submitted by ScottMPotter on April 10, 2022
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 20 sec read
- 3 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXBACXCXABB B |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 416 |
Words | 68 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 11, 1 |
Translation
Find a translation for this poem in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this poem to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Watery Creature" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/124587/watery-creature>.
Discuss the poem Watery Creature with the community...
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In